Mayan vs Spreader Bar Hammock: Which Should You Buy?
In twenty-five years of selling hammocks, one question came up more than any other. Somebody would walk in, look along the wall, and ask: what's the difference between the one with the bar and the one without?
It's a good question, and it always deserved a longer answer than I could give across a counter. So here's the long answer.
The one with the bars is a spreader bar hammock — wooden bars at each end holding the bed open flat. You'll also see these sold as rope hammocks, which is the same thing in most cases. The one without is a mayan hammock. The name comes from where the style comes from: it's the traditional hammock of Central America, and of the Yucatán in particular, woven without any wooden spreader bars.
They aren't variations on a theme. They're two different objects that happen to share a name, and they want different things from you.
Nine out of ten hammocks I sell are spreader bars. That isn't people getting it wrong. The right spreader bar hammock — well made, well balanced — is as comfortable as it is beautiful, and there is nothing at all wrong with buying one. If that's where you land, you'll be happy.
But the other one exists, and there are real reasons you might want it instead.
Neither one is better. It comes down to two things: where it's going to hang, and who's going to be in it.
One hammock was built as a bed. The other was built as furniture
Before anything else, this — because everything below follows from it, and it's the reason the two feel so different.
A mayan hammock was somebody's bed. In the Yucatán, where these have been hand woven for centuries, a hammock wasn't a garden ornament. It was the bed — slung from hooks set in the wall, slept in every night, eight hours at a time, for years on end. The deep curve, the fine soft string, the width that lets you roll onto your side: every bit of that was designed around a full night's sleep in a hot, humid climate.
A spreader bar hammock was built to be furniture. The bars are an American addition to a much older design, and they were put there for a reason: to hold the bed flat and open so you could sit on it and lie out on it. It's outdoor furniture, and a good piece of it.
Neither one is a compromised version of the other. They were solving different problems and they both solved theirs well.
The short answer: which hammock should you buy?
Buy a spreader bar hammock if you want something that sits open and inviting whether anyone's in it or not, lies flat like a bed, and works on a stand. It's the classic American backyard hammock and there's a reason it stayed the classic. It's also what most people picture, and picturing it is half of why anyone buys a hammock at all.
We firmly believe a hammock ought to be beautiful to look at. It should catch your eye from the kitchen window and make you feel a little more relaxed just knowing it's out there. That's a real part of the job, not a bonus.
Buy a mayan hammock if you want something that hugs you — long afternoons, naps, reading, falling asleep outside on purpose. It's deeper and softer, and you lie in it diagonally rather than along it. It needs to hang higher than a spreader bar hammock, in a soft U shape.
Buy one if your space is tight or under cover, too. A mayan takes up less room, not more, and it'll hang from ceiling joists as happily as from wall joists — a porch, a covered patio, a narrow deck, a spare room indoors. It won't work well on a stand, but it'll hang in plenty of places a spreader bar hammock simply can't.
Buy one for the look of it, as well. A mayan brings a bohemian feel that a spreader bar hammock doesn't — bright cord, a soft curve, something that reads as handmade rather than as patio furniture.
Or buy one because you're already a confirmed fan of this style.
One thing before you choose, though, and it's the most important sentence in this article: don't pick on comfort. A well made one of either style can be just as comfortable as the other. What decides it isn't the style — it's who's going to be using it and where you're going to put it. Get those two right and either one will treat you well.
That's the whole decision. Everything below is why.
The two hammocks in the video are both ours — a Caribbean Mayan and a Jumbo Caribbean rope hammock. Same materials, same end cords, woven by the same hands. The mayan is a little smaller and its body is woven more openly, and beyond that the difference is the bars. So what you're watching is two styles, not one being better made than the other.
How you lie in a mayan vs a spreader bar hammock
This is the part that decides whether you love your hammock or quietly stop using it.
In a spreader bar hammock you lie straight. Along the length, like a bed. Kick out an elbow and a knee, spread yourself out a bit, and that's all there is to it. Get in, lie down, done. That's its single biggest advantage and it's not a small one.
In a mayan hammock you lie diagonally. Not along it — across it, at an angle. Head toward one corner, feet toward the other. Put out an elbow and a knee, and don't fight the hammock — move around a bit until it settles around you and you feel like you're floating on air.
Most people never find this out. They climb into a mayan the way they'd climb into a spreader bar, end to end, and the hammock folds them into a banana with their back bent and the fabric squeezing their shoulders, compound that with the probability that they hung it tight and flat or worse still in a stand and you really are going to struggle to get comfortable. They decide that mayan hammocks aren't comfortable and they're wrong. They just used it wrong.
Hang it high and loose, lie across it at an angle and the whole thing changes. The fabric opens up underneath you, your back goes flat, your shoulders have room, and your feet aren't higher than your head. It's a short learning curve — a few minutes and you've got it — and I show you how in the video.
Can two people fit in a hammock?
This is the one place people have consistently told me the spreader bar wins. The flat bed lets two people lie side by side properly, each with their own space and their own bit of the view.
A mayan doesn't really do side by side. The curve rolls you both toward the middle and you end up in a warm embrace whether you planned on one or not. A fair number of couples consider that the entire point. A fair number don't.
Is a spreader bar hammock easier to get into?
You'll read everywhere that a spreader bar hammock is easier to climb into. It looks like it should be — flat, open, sitting there like a bench. It's a nice piece of marketing, and it isn't true. Getting into either style takes about the same amount of doing, and neither one is hard as long as you hang it right — which is a bigger part of this than most people realise. I've covered that in detail here: How to Hang a Hammock Between Two Trees.
Which hammock is cooler? Heat and airflow
Both styles cool well, and that's the whole point of an open weave. Air moves through the bed instead of trapping heat against your back, which is exactly what you want on a hot afternoon.
There's nothing to choose between them here. Either one will keep you cooler than a solid piece of fabric ever will.
How far apart to hang each hammock
Spreader bar hammock. Wants about 13 feet of span or more, and the lower anchors of the two. Remember it's 55 inches wide as well, so leave it room on either side to swing. Hang it with a gentle curve rather than pulled tight — a tight hammock is a tippy hammock, and it's the most common mistake people make.
Mayan hammock. Here's the thing almost everyone gets wrong: a mayan doesn't need more distance. It wants about 12 feet or more between anchors — less than a spreader bar. What it needs is height. It hangs in a much deeper U than a spreader bar does, so the bed drops a long way below your hooks. Aim for anchors at least five feet up. Set them at spreader bar height and you'll be sitting on the grass.
In floor space it actually asks for less than a spreader bar, not more. Nothing holds it open, so it's narrower in use — and narrower still when nobody's in it.
That's the part people miss when they measure. Look up as well as across.
And here's the flexibility nobody mentions: because a mayan hangs in a more pronounced U shape, it doesn't need trees or posts at all. It'll hang from ceiling joists as happily as from wall joists — a porch ceiling, a covered patio, a beam across a room. That's how they're hung in the Yucatán, and it opens up spots a spreader bar hammock simply can't use. Anchor into the joist itself with proper hardware, not into the boards.
It'll also tuck into tighter spaces than you'd expect. A porch, a narrow deck, a spare room — a mayan puts its length into depth rather than demanding floor space, so given the height it'll fit places a rigid spreader bar hammock won't go.
Either way, the number that actually matters is where you end up: sitting 18 to 24 inches off the ground once you're in it. You get there by setting the anchor height to suit the style. If you're hanging between trees, I've covered the whole process step by step in How to Hang a Hammock Between Two Trees.
How each hammock looks, which matters more than people care to admit
Let's be honest about this, because it's the reason most people choose and it usually goes unsaid.
A spreader bar hammock hangs open. It holds its shape with nobody in it, it reads as a hammock from fifty feet away, and it's part of the view from your kitchen window every day of the summer. A backyard hammock gets looked at far more often than it gets lain in — a spreader bar is doing its job the whole time, whether anyone's home or not.
A mayan hanging empty looks like a rope. It's lovely in use and close to invisible out of it.
If the hammock is meant to be a feature of the yard, that's a real difference, and I'd never tell anyone they were being shallow for caring about it. Some of what a hammock does for you, it does while you're looking at it.
Wood, weather and debris: what you notice after a season or two
Two things separate these hammocks over time rather than on day one, and both run the mayan's way.
A mayan has no wood in it. Nothing to rot, nothing to split, nothing to sand back and re-varnish. A spreader bar hammock has two pieces of timber taking weather at the two most stressed points on the whole thing. Good bars are varnished properly and they last — but wood left outdoors is still wood left outdoors, and that's a job you'll have on your list eventually.
A mayan closes itself. With nobody in it, it hangs as a narrow rope rather than an open bed. Hang one under trees and it won't collect leaves, twigs, seed pods, or whatever else comes down — there's no flat surface for any of it to land on. A spreader bar hammock under the same tree is a shelf. That's not just untidiness either: debris sitting on damp fabric is exactly where staining and mildew get started.
If your only hanging spot is under a canopy of trees, that difference is worth more than it sounds.
Will a mayan hammock fit on a stand?
This one causes more disappointment than anything else I deal with, so I'll be blunt.
A mayan hammock will not fit on our stands. Not the Metal Tribeam, not any of them — and the reason isn't what most people assume. It's not that the stand is too short end to end. It's that it isn't tall enough. Most frames top out around four feet at the hanging points, and a mayan needs to hang higher than that. Put one on a stand and the deep curve drops the bed straight onto the ground.
That won't stop other companies selling you the two together. I won't, and I never will.
Our Jumbo spreader bar hammock does fit our stands. The 15 foot metal triple beam and the 13 foot wood arc both put their hanging points far enough apart for it.
So: if you're buying a stand, buy a spreader bar hammock. If you've got two good trees, posts you're willing to set, or a solid ceiling or wall to anchor into, the mayan is on the table.
So which hammock should you buy?
Two questions settle it. Where is it going, and who's getting in it?
Where it's going. Tight or sheltered — a porch, a covered patio, a spot under trees, a room indoors — think mayan. It's narrower, it wants less floor space, it'll hang off joists, and it closes up so nothing drops into it. Open ground — out on the lawn, beside the pool — or you need a stand, and it's the spreader bar. It holds its shape when nobody's in it, which matters when it's the thing you're looking at from across the yard.
Who's getting in it. Two of you side by side, or guests who'll flop into it without being told how — spreader bar. One of you, long afternoons, happy to learn the diagonal lie and be hugged rather than lying flat — mayan. A couple who'd rather be pushed together than lie apart — mayan, and you already know which of those you are.
If those two answers disagree, go with where it's going. You can adapt to a hammock. You can't adapt your porch.
I sell both, and I mean it when I say I'd hate to talk anyone out of either. I'll admit my own bias while I'm at it: I tend to prefer the mayan, and nine out of ten of them buy the spreader bar anyway and are perfectly happy.
And for the record, I love all of them. Something a kid strung up out of old onion sacks or a sub $5 hammock at a road side stop in Vietnam is still a hammock, and I'd climb into it happily — because nothing beats the feeling of swinging in the breeze.
As for which one I hang — all of them. There are hammocks strung up all over the farm and the cabin, and not just because it's my job. I really do enjoy them.
One last thing before you buy
Pick the style that suits your space and the people who'll be using it, and you'll have the right hammock.
A well made one of either style can be just as comfortable as the other. Everything else — the shape, the technique, the way it looks hanging empty — is just the two of them being good at different things.
I'm the founder of K.W. Hammock Company, so I sell the things I'm writing about. I've tried to write this the way I'd explain it to someone standing in front of me, which is how I sold hammocks for a long time before there was a website.
Questions about hanging, spans or hardware — ask. I answer them all.